We live in a world which is constantly evolving. Never finished. If you’re asking questions about now you’re missing the point entirely. The problem with journalism today is that those who participate in it are obsessed with what’s happening today. In the present. Which tomorrow will be yesterday. And in two days be old news or entirely forgotten. When the world is looked at with a more historical perspective in mind, we see the bigger picture. We lose the need to analyze and translate what’s happening in the moment and instead ask bigger questions. About what things might be like in the future.
The only thing that interests me is the future, for it’s the closest target we can aim for in our quest to understand the bigger questions left still unanswered. Most of what transpires in the present is meaningless and already yesterday’s news before it’s even been written about. The news media, writers, journalists may be interested in it. The common man and the masses may claim to be interested in it. But it’s not the stuff that keeps us up at night. Nor what fuels our passion to wake up each morning after. When I view the world, I view it from the future, a far away future, a more evolved future. Always looking back, sometimes to the now, but usually to a time years or decades ahead of now. When confronted with a problem of the now, it seems petty and small, when accompanied by the knowledge that in the end things will work themselves out in ways very few few can even imagine.
Thus it’s of very little importance to ask “why did North Carolina ban same sex marriage?” for example, when we already know that in the not too distant future North Carolina will reverse the ban and the country will celebrate its catching up and coming out party. It is equally as mundane to question how one feels about the Tea Party, or the Occupy Movement, or modern day presidential elections. Knowing that they too will fade from the micrscopic lens of supreme importance just as everything does, and instead give way to the bigger stuff of import: that humankind will fight and endure as long as It has to until it no longer has anything in it’s way to fight or endure, that in the end man’s struggle for freedom and autonomy will win out in the end, just as it always does. The individual political powers parties movements and even the struggles themselves will soon become mere footnotes in our collective history, the names unimportant. What is important is that humankind will survive, no matter the odds, and eventually thrive. This is the future. A far better subject to contemplate and write about.
Great Music Never Needed Great Gear
Just listened to the song HEROES AND VILLAINS by the Beach Boys here in the recording studio w the guys, to hear what real vocals sound like… Just to get some inspiration. What we were amazed by is that this is 1967 mind you. They were still working with tape machines back then. And not big Studer 24 track machines, but tiny little 4 and 8 track machines that teens today in their garage would laugh at. There were No digital audio workstations (DAWs), no Protools systems with infinite “Undo” capability. If you messed up, you sang or played your part over and over again until you got it right. There was no auto-tune. You had to be able to sing in tune. And do it well. Many of today’s artists would never have been able to release even one song, just because of that. What we have here is absolutely brilliant sounding. Pure magic in less than 4 minutes. Just really great vocalists singing incredibly intricate vocal lines in a very complexly arranged song. Forget the video attached. It’s entertaining to be sure. But just listen to these vocals…!!!
Sometimes I think we’ve gone too far in our quest for perfection in audio…. When all along music like this was being made with none of today’s bells and whistles. And in fact many people still consider the music of the 60s and 70s the greatest music that’s ever been released. Call it the curse of the digital audio age. Granted, it does allow for some incredibly tasty new inventive sounds and styles to enter the collective world of music making. Black Eyed Peas are responsible for some bangingly innovative tracks. So is Takemura Nabukazo, Autechre, Akufen… People are out there really pushing the envelope of what “music” is. And it’s thrilling to hear what’s going to come next. for sure.
But we are also left with an unpleasant taste in our mouth when it comes to other artists who make rather plain dumbed down commercial music with no inherent need for advanced digital gear to produce innovative sounds we’ve never heard before but who rely on today’s “fix it in the mix” technology in order to even put out a new song or album. Without Protools and drum machines and autotune, they’d be unable to record a song that others with more talent could pull off with some ordinary instruments and a two track tape recorder. Now we’re in the realm of making stars out of people who really cant sing or play an instrument. Just because they might look appealing to the mainstreamers who don’t know any better. The technological advancements that have been developed in music are being used as a crutch by those who are incapable — rather than as a tool to innovate by the edgy and brilliant among us. That’s still happening, thank God. But that music, just as it always has, is being eclipsed by the more mundane vanilla variety. It’s hard now to even imagine a world where a song like “Heroes and Villains” by the Beach Boys could be released as a single to radio, get hundreds of spins a week and hit the Top 40.
But as always I do have hope. With the advent of internet radio stations such as Pandora and Spotify, we do seem to be shifting towards a new phase where really good true authentic music is being discovered and eaten up by the masses just as much as the generic shite the major record labels and the radio station programmers are still trying to shove down everyone’s throats ad nauseum. now it’s possible for artists who receive absolutely no radio AirPlay whatsoever to get a name for themselves and find a little niche for themselves. Especially with the advent of “sync licensing” (TV, movies, commercials) becoming the new vehicle of discovery, versus the old fashioned major label big budget marketing push.
Proud to Be American
Between the images and stories thay grace the cover of People magazine or the content and storylines that fill the screens at movie theatres or television sets in the average American home, it’s easy to feel a subtle but deep sense of shame disrespect towards or even disgust about America. We feel it when politicians talk about “American exceptionalism”. Or when anyone talks about that thing they call jersey shore or America’s got talent or Howard stern or Donald trump. Just as we did when anyone spoke about desperate housewives or melrose place before it. Just as we did when they spoke of “manifest destiny”. When north carolina became the 40? State to ban same sex marriage. Everytime a state executes another man in death row as a way to show how well they understand the teschings of jesus who rhey love so much. In fact just about anything that most americans do in the bame of jesus whom they say they love so mich gives cause for embarrasment disgust to any thinking person. There is plenty to be ashamed of in America. It’s hard to escape it. You can not subscribe to television not read the papers or magazines nor go to the movies. And yet it still finds you. If a person didn’t k ow any better they’d think America was a country filled with sluts bigots bullies racists two-faced liars double talking opportunists and greedy thieves and more.
But theres also a different side to America. It’s not all Sarah Palins and Paul Ryans and George Zimmermans and Eric Cantors and John Boeners and bill O’reilys and paris hiltons lindsay lohans Britney spears niki minag and and kieth Olbermans and Donald trumps and newt gingrichs.
America has a softer side. A nobler side. It may be a much snaller fraction of the whole. And It certainly doesn’t get the attention that the …. But it’s still there. Just below the surface.
There’s NPR. 60 minutes. Nova. Tom’s Shoes. Ben and Jerry’s. Democracy Now.
Reference Bowe Bergdahl and the pride one cannot help but feel when thinking of his service, his parents’ belief in him and his service to his country, and the support of his local community.
The Danger of Third Party Poltics in Modern Day America
I’ll keep you posted. It’s an intriguing place America is in right now. More discouraging a place one might say than we’ve ever been in. It’s a nightmare come to life. A damn annoying three ring circus. Sad, frustrating, disheartening, frightening, insulting, and discouraging. A lot of hullaballoo over two ignoble men and an onslaught of non-issues and gossip abound. Anything BUT the issues. Even those with the noblest intentions in the media partake in the daily inanity of it all. We the people have been kidnapped. Hooked. Trapped. Imprisoned. Taken hostage. Thrown into a prisoner of war camp and left for dead. Helpless to do anything about it but write these worthless letters or sign endless petitions that go nowhere and do nothing. Voting against the big two that together act as one seems a noble act. At least theoretically. To make a statement. But how long until it actually accomplishes anything? Other than potentially making our captors even worse than the ones we have now? That’s the question.